


for all that we've been through

by magisterequitum



Category: Psy-Changeling - Nalini Singh
Genre: F/M, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-02
Updated: 2013-11-02
Packaged: 2017-12-31 07:33:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1028977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magisterequitum/pseuds/magisterequitum
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She watches from the bed as Kaleb buttons his shirt. Long fingers start from the bottom, working their way up in precise movements, and it’s pleasing to watch the bare skin. The pleasure dissipates though when she sees the mottled bruises that still have not faded after three days.</p>
            </blockquote>





	for all that we've been through

**Author's Note:**

  * For [spyglass](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spyglass/gifts), [tosca1390](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tosca1390/gifts), [katayla](https://archiveofourown.org/users/katayla/gifts), [empressearwig](https://archiveofourown.org/users/empressearwig/gifts).



> Set post Heart of Obsidian.

The house is silent when she wakes. Warmth and comfort surround her, and it takes a moment of bleary eyed blinking to realize why she’d awoken. She licks her tongue over her teeth as she rolls over into the empty spot that holds residual body warmth.

Eyelashes still heavy, Sahara sinks into the captured heat, trying to keep it as long as possible. She watches from the bed as Kaleb buttons his shirt. Long fingers start from the bottom, working their way up in precise movements, and it’s pleasing to watch the bare skin. The pleasure dissipates though when she sees the mottled bruises that still have not faded after three days. Discomfort and hurt blooms in her chest, makes her throat ache and fingers spasm against the bedding. The action of moving seems to much also.

He kneels and touches her cheek, cufflinks cool against her sleep warm skin. _I have a meeting. Will you be alright?_

She knows that if she said no, he would cancel. That she could entreat him back into bed and into her arms with that simple syllable.

She shakes her head. “I’ll be fine.”

He kisses her, and even though it’s quick, it’s still sharp and a hard press of his mouth against hers.

 

 

 

Sahara rises from the bed when she is unable to fall back asleep. The back of her eyelids show only greens and yellows and purple mixed all together. She leaves the warmth of the sheets to press bare feet against the cool floor. Her toes flex as she pushes upward, stretching her calves and muscles.

There’s only the fleeting sound of water from the koi pond as she eats in the kitchen. Her body still hasn’t regained all of her weight prior to her capture, and she cannot miss meals. Pastries on the marble countertop bring a smile to her lips; he won’t deviate from the nutritional plans their race lives on, but he won’t hesitate to spoil her otherwise. The raspberry one is still slightly hot and good.

After she doesn’t change from the shirt she’d slept in. It’s his and hits against her knees, the cotton blend soft against her bare breasts. She feels colder today and does add a pair of loose sweatpants to cover her legs.

The house is hers, theirs, and there’s still places she’s yet to fully immerse herself in.

One is the room with the red rug and white furniture, the shelves filled with nonfiction titles that no true Psy would own. Ignoring the ones with spines that are neater and more together, she skims the titles till she finds one her hand stills on.

Sahara folds herself down into one of the armchairs, turning over the cover. A few pages in and she realizes why her hand had settled on it. Mathematical equations and explanations, but it’s the handwriting in the margins that draws her gaze. Two distinct sets. Her own blocked, compact writing and another more refined in loops and precise strokes. Her mind shudders, a memory shaking its way to the forefront:

_'A hand, long fingers pointing out where she’s miscalculated and caused the formula to give an incorrect answer._

_The adult viewer, her now, does not look to the hand though. Nor does she focus on the speaker’s voice as he patiently tells her how to fix the mistake. Instead, she is drawn to the same thing her thirteen year old self had looked at._

_His sweatshirt sleeve has bunched up past his wrist, enough to expose the skin of his forearm, enough to reveal bruising and thin reedy lines of cut skin._

_Bile coats the back of her throat, and she has to fight to focus on his voice and her math homework. To speak on it would be nothing she has not already said, and he’s told her before, a quiet confession given in trust, that this time here may be fleeting but it matters all so much.'_

The fury of her younger self bleeds into her mind as the memory fades into recess. A cutting pain against her palm, she looks down to see that she’s clenched her hand into a fist, the charms on her bracelet pressing into her skin. She welcomes the bite of discomfort. Let that cut through her anger, she thinks.

It does not take much to realize why her mind had unwoven this particular memory at this time, given that it bore no difference to countless others from their past. The bruises might have come from different sources, but still they weighed on her.

Keeping her hand closed in a fist, she turns the pages and grounds herself.

 

 

 

The trick doesn’t work and the anger still sits heavy and twined around the spaces between her ribs when Kaleb wakes her with a hand to her cheek.

He catches the book as she shifts awake, a sudden jerk of her body at being awoken having dislodged the still open text from her lap. Cardinal eyes black with soft pulses of white peer down at her. “Sahara-“

She might have greeted him differently had today been different. Had she not woken with this restless feeling under her skin. Had it not been only three days after the announcement of the fall of Silence and the revelation of them and their stance. Had it not been maybe this hour and right here. She might have asked him how the meeting had been. If he wanted to sit with her on the terrace. If she could help him with anything.

As it is, Sahara doesn’t. She cuts him off and reaches for him across the bond, ' _Kaleb',_  just as she reaches for him with her arms, unfolding stiff limbs from the chair.

He takes her weight easily, picking her up till her arms loop around his neck and her legs around his hips, one arm bolstering her waist and one hand curving around the back of her neck. _yes_ and it’s a solid reassurance not through telepathy or spoken word, but through the bond that connects their minds. A feeling. The psychic tie between them continues to change each day, strengthening itself and divulging secrets. The sensations they could pass to each other had been a pleasurable discovery in the shower. Now, she needs it as much as she needs his hands on her.

 _'Here,'_ she tells him when he takes a step back, when she knows he will teleport them away to the bed if she doesn’t stop him. “I need you here.” A flash of mottled bruises passes between them telepathically, escaping from her anxious mind. Her throat feels tight again.

Kaleb does as she says though, takes them to the floor, an awkward slide of limbs until he’s kneeling with her still with legs around his waist, arms around his neck. “Sahara, what is wrong?” His voice is tinged with the faintest hint of concern to someone unfamiliar, but to her it’s everything.

“I need you here,” she repeats even as she’s unbuttoning his shirt, slipping the tie’s knot free and the fabric from around his neck. “I need you to touch me.” She kisses him and touches bare skin. “I need to feel.”

 _'Anything,'_ he answers and lets her remove his shirt. But then he’s shifting so that he sits on the floor, leaning her back so he can slide fingers under her shirt, up over her ribs, gathering the fabric to pull over her head. Quick and efficient, he urges her to stand on wobbly legs so he can pull the sweatpants down her thighs and calves and over her feet.

Sahara steps out of the pants and lets him urge her back down into his arms and lap, her knees on the floor astride him. She kisses him, hands grasping at his hair, pressing herself close to him. Her bare breasts rub against his chest, the cool metal of his belt making her gasp as it touches her. With one hand, he puts pressure on her jaw line, urging her mouth open. The other trails across her stomach to go lower. Her gasp has nothing to do with temperature.

He swallows the sound, tongue licking her bottom lip before teeth pull it between his lips. The bond shudders between them and his mind covers her gently, a solid presence. He touches her without hesitation, one finger stroking her folds and then sliding inside.

Still it is not enough and she rocks her hips down, impatience and wanting. “More,” she says and shifts her head so she can mouth at the pulse in his neck.

Two fingers and Kaleb crooks them inside her, rubbing at a spot that makes her hips jerk and teeth scrape against the sweat skin of his neck. He’s relentless, adds his thumb to put pressure on her clitoris. She shudders and breathes in the scent of him. It’s the bond thrumming between them, the pulse against her lips, and his thumbnail scraping her clit that brings her over the edge.

Her limbs feel loose as her orgasm shakes through her, and her lungs feel less constrictive. The tightness, the worry, the anger, it has drained from her with the solid presence of him as he holds her, strokes the sweaty skin of her back, wet fingers on her hip. He is here and hers.

Sahara kisses him, softer this time and his eyes are no less that midnight hue as he stares down at her. Even now in his lap he’s still taller and bigger. She pushes his hair back from his forehead and cannot help but touch the bruise on his arm.

 

 

 

Kaleb buttons her in his shirt, fingers brushing across her breasts as he closes it up, and then he settles her into the breakfast nook. He makes her hot chocolate and water for him, presses the mug against her hand as he sits next to her instead of across from her.

The gesture fills her with such warmth that water threatens to stick her lashes together.

He curves a big hand across the side of her face, cupping her jaw and turning her face to him so he can touch their foreheads together. ' _You told me I am yours.'_

Words accompanied by the frozen image of them in the rain on the terrace. Her words. Her vicious declaration.

“You are mine.” A quiet conviction, deadly serious from a serious mouth and obsidian touched eyes. His meaning entirely different from the other times he’s said the same. This time a repeating of her own promise. He knows what has troubled her today, regardless that she’s not voiced it aloud.

She needs to shower, still wet between her bare legs, and they need to eat real food. She will ask him the things she should have earlier. They will talk of the gold and black helix that twines their minds together on the psychic plane. They will discuss their next move. All things that have no easy answers. All things that can hold.

Sahara leans into the weight of him, her forehead against his, and breathes in between the spaces where he inhales.


End file.
